Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="carpedavid" data-source="post: 2309904" data-attributes="member: 6971">Round 1, Match 6: Warden vs. MarkRight. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2299808&postcount=123" target="_blank">Warden</a>. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2300260&postcount=133" target="_blank">Mark</a>. Back? Good. Right off the bat, I'm going to say that this is by far, the weakest of the matchups we've seen this round. While other entries have had weaknesses that I found forgivable or understandable, both of these adventures were written by people who should know better. Accordingly, this is likely to be the most critical of the round, so if you want to avoid all the unpleasantness and just find out who won, go ahead and skip to the end. I won't blame you.Now, while both entries were bad, they were bad in different ways. So let's dissect them and find out what went so terribly, terribly wrong. We'll begin, as I have in most of these judgments, with a comparison of ingredient use. First up is the Ectoplasmic Corset. Here, both contestants use the ingredient as a method of gaining access to the ethereal plane.Where do I begin? In D&D, ectoplasm has a specific meaning. It is a substance drawn from the Astral Plane. As a quality added to an armor or item of some type, it allows the wearer to assume "ectoplasmic form" for a brief duration. What is ectoplasmic form? Nothing like an ethereal form! In fact, so far as I can tell, ectoplasm has nothing at all to do with the ethereal plane. The only place I can find an intersection between the two is in the description of the psionic power, ethereal cocoon, where the prison generated by said cocoon extends into the ethereal. But that's it. Stretching an ingredient to fit the adventure is a time-honored Iron DM tradition, but here, the contestants basically ignore the "ectoplasmic" quality. The ingredient they used would have been a great Ethereal Corset, but it certainly isn't an Ectoplasmic one. Neither contestant even gets off the starting line with this one.Next let's look at Violet. Again, neither use is very strong. Mark basically hides the ingredient in his lich's statblock. If I hadn't read it carefully enough, I wouldn't have seen it at all. Moreover, the ingredient is used as the description for a disease that's disfiguring enough to drive a vain bard to lichdom, but by its stats doesn't really seem to be that bad. And what does the disease do? By the description, "Violet Veins," it sounds like it gives the user a bad case of varicose veins. Shouldn't it cause Charisma damage then?Warden, on the other hand, uses the violet as a key to access the peaceful Eternal Keep. Though he doesn't mention it, there is a thematic connection between the violet and the peace-loving keep. Violet has been used by certain cultures to moderate anger or to induce a calming effect. I'm not sure whether this connection was intentional, but Warden nevertheless gets credit for it. He gains a little bit of ground here.This brings us to the Ethereal Keep. In Mark's case, the keep is a lich's lair, which seems appropriate. I can certainly imagine an insane wizard taking up residence in something like this. Warden, on the other hand, creates an adventurers' retirement home in the ethereal plane, which is certainly an interesting take. Since Warden's use of this ingredient is slightly more creative, he advances ever so slightly.Since I just mentioned the keep, I might as well tackle the Pacifism ingredient. Warden strongly ties this ingredient into the nearly every other. The pacifistic nature of the ethereal demiplane makes it an ideal retirement home for a famous swordsman who has a long list of enemies. It also justifies the summoning of a rust monster, as well, since the rust monster is much more concerned about eating metal than eating adventurers.Mark, on the other hand, creates a series of non-violent traps (including the rust monster), and identifies the ingredient in a warning to would be intruders. Are the traps really that pacifistic though? To a group of adventurers high enough in level to take on a lich, yeah, they probably are. That CR4 mimic is about one fireball away from being shag carpeting, and that poor rust monster's best hope is to get a bite out of someone's dagger before it's pelted with arrows and magic missiles. It's not a poor use of the ingredient, but Warden's use is significantly better.As I mentioned above, the Rust Monster is used by Mark as a means to slow down potential intruders. It's a serviceable use of the ingredient, and ties into Pacifism, but is otherwise not particularly inspired. Warden, on the other hand, justifies the summoning of the rust monsters because of their pacifistic nature (at least to non-metallic creatures), and then uses them as a means to cover his antagonist's tracks.However, Warden states that his antagonist's goal is to steal the sword "without arousing suspicion." I'm not entirely sure how the random appearance of a set of rust monsters in this plane that is normally closed off to any but those who have a key would not arouse suspicion. Do rust monsters routinely pass through the area? Is there a "Rust Monster Crossing" sign by the main road? Even if the swordsman thought that his sword was destroyed, wouldn't he try to seek vengeance for what is obviously a deliberate act? While I was initially impressed with the use of this ingredient, on closer inspection, it falls apart. Mark actually makes up ground on Warden with this ingredient by not flubbing it.This brings us to the Famous Swordsman ingredient. Warden goes the literal route, and created the character of Jellan. His exploits earned him plenty of enemies, and led him to retire to a plane where said enemies couldn't retaliate directly.Mark takes the interpretive route and creates his own version of a "swordsman." His continual "swordplay" gets him into trouble, and, presumably, is also what motivates the characters to hunt him down. As written, though, Vothario is a pretty one-dimensional character, and the PCs are unlikely to get much of an opportunity to witness his swordplay. Additionally, his crimes (spreading a relatively minor VD) don't really seem up to the kind of rottenness that befits a lich.Since he's neither sympathetic, nor really that vile – he just doesn't come across as compelling at all. Therefore, Warden pulls farther ahead.Of course, now we have to look at playability. Mark gives us very little in the way of hooks. Vothario presumably seduced the wrong person, and now the PCs are on his trail for whatever reason. That's fine. Once they get to his lair, they're faced with a number of inconvenient traps which, at a level appropriate for lich-hunting, they should bypass quickly. From there, it's a hop, skip, and a jump to the lich's bedroom, and there the adventure devolves into a big fight.This brings me to the major problem I have with Mark's entry. It's supposed to be a fight against a CR19 lich, and the power level of both the antagonist and protagonists isn't really taken into account. I'm certain that an uber-powerful, undead spellcaster can come up with more effective non-lethal traps than what were included. There's no mention of the lich's tactics, nothing indicating his escape plan (he's a lich – he's going to have a plan B), and no accounting for the awesome magic that PCs of this level are capable of wielding.Warden's adventure, on the other hand, is well-tuned for PCs of a specific power level. The challenges presented felt consistent, throughout. However, as the adventure is written, there's absolutely no reason at all for the PCs to be involved!From the way that the adventure reads, Spite sends the PCs in to distract Jellan, though they don't know that this is the plan. First of all, he sends along a book that he supposedly scries. This is supposed to tell him when Jellan is away from the armory, so that he can go in to steal the book. Problem One: in the description of scry in the SRD, you can't target an object – you have to target a creature. Problem Two: from the description that we're given, it appears that Spite is a prior target of Jellan. If he knows Jellan that well, why can't he just scry him? In that case, the PCs have no need to be involved. Problem Three: if the PCs are successful in distracting Jellan, then Spite will sneak in and out without anyone knowing he was there. Poof! No conflict! Boring adventure!The PCs becoming involved in any conflict is predicated on a very specific set of circumstances – the PCs have to be in the armory when Spite goes to collect the weapon (or spot him on the way out), but the whole setup of the adventure is to prevent that from happening. This reads like a great background for a future adventure, one in which Jellan enlists the aid of the PCs to retrieve a sword stolen by an enemy, but it's not much of an adventure in and of itself.If the first match of this round was the one where I wanted to advance both contestants, this is the one where I want to advance neither. Alas, I'm required to choose one to advance, so I must ask the question: which adventure is less troublesome? Mark provides us with more stat blocks than adventure, and his ingredient use was weak. Warden provides us with an adventure that should play itself, but his ingredient use was strong. By virtue of showing more potential, <spoiler: highlight to view>[spoiler]Warden[/spoiler]</spoiler> advances to the next round.</blockquote>

Verification